As I prepare to deliver a commencement speech for my school, Open World Learning Community (OWL) on the transition from young person to adult (and the role character and culture education play), I have been spending a lot of time thinking about legacy. I'll post the contents of my speech after I give it, but the basic idea is that whether you can be consider an adult or not can be determined by how you handle your responsibilities (replace adult with professional and you can gauge yourself as a professional against the same standard). However, I don't see becoming an effect adult the final goal, but instead what I'll call a matriarch or patriarch. To be considered an effective matriarch or patriarch, or the professional equivalent, you will be weighed by the legacy you leave.
I imagine that many of my readers are are not end of profession educators. Therefore, the question you need to ask yourself first is "Am I fulfilling my professional responsibilities?" If not, start there. Don't worry about your legacy yet! However, if your a mid-career professional and are taking care of your professional responsibilities then you can start thinking about the legacy you are leaving behind.
There are several ways to think about your legacy. Most teachers probably think about their legacy in terms of the sum impact on their students. That is a legitimate way to calculate a legacy, but I believe an incomplete one. What kind of policy changes have your fought to implement or remove that helped students learn in your building, district, state, etc? What have you done to help others in the profession that are coming after you to be successful and start a legacy of their own? What have you don in the community to influence people's perceptions of your profession? Tell me, what are you doing to build your legacy?
I have been lucky enough to work with some amazing educators in my short 12 years of teaching. Several of them have left a legacy which I believe will stand the test of time. I have seen gifted educators also leave and be nearly forgotten, except by a select few who remember vividly their contributions and lament their retirement (but never begrudge them). And I have seen educators behave in such ways at the end of their careers that it almost gets to the point that there are those that don't want to work with them; that think they maybe held on too long.
If you are an end of career educator, I'd like to hear about how you're cementing your legacy as you prepare to transition. Are you sticking to your principles as you move on or have you abandoned them?
